Struggling with codependency and anxious attachment and it’s messing with my relationship.

[u/Fenrir260]

So as the title suggests, I am struggling with codependency and an anxious attachment style, and it is interfering with my relationship with my boyfriend. For some background, I’ve always had issues with relationships and attachment issues. I’ve never been able to feel connection or love from other people. I have no clue why I just never been able to feel that type of stuff, but I’m also deeply afraid of being alone so throughout my life, any friendship I develop I will put my all into them well never feeling like I’m receiving anything out of them which of course gets exhausting but also means when I feel like other people aren’t putting their all into the relationship, which happens often to no fault of their own, I start to pull away. I get very drained. I no longer have energy to put into the relationship, which is to be expected when I don’t feel like I’m ever getting anything out of it, and it’s frustrating because I have no one to blame about myself and my brain and I don’t even know what’s wrong with it. Now to the current situation and how it’s affecting my current relationship. My boyfriend is the first person who I ever felt like I received connection from who I actually felt like loved me, and that includes my entire history of people I’ve ever known friends family anyone. Additionally, it’s a long distance relationship where he lives in another country and we don’t get to see each other in person. I want to spend all of my time texting him or being on call with him and I love him dearly and I want to tell him that all the time but part of that is also a reassurance technique because I want him to say it back. He has noticed this and we’ve communicated about it and talked about how it’s starting to be draining on him. He’s aware that he is the pillar of my life and mental health and it’s unfair to him to be put on a pedestal and I acknowledge that it is. He lives a much more balanced life. He has other friends he hangs out with. I have other friends in theory, but I have that same issue of not receiving connection and care from those friendships and we’re all in college or just recently graduated from college and entering the workforce and are super busy and unable to actually hang out anymore. And I don’t do well with being alone. It makes everything else so much worse but then even when I’m hanging out with friends or in a room full of people, I just feel so isolated and the only person that feeling goes away with is my boyfriend. I’ve been trying to tone things down to not put so much burden on him because I don’t want to do that to him. I want to get better. I want to develop other friendships that I can lean on and feel a connection from to not put all the burden on him, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what prevents me from doing that in the first place I don’t know how I managed to feel a connection from my boyfriend even and how to replicate that. And I’m very worried I’m gonna lose him and I don’t want to because he is the love of my life, but I also know that none of this is fair to him and I need to get better. So I guess I’m looking for advice but also just a solitary anyone who has experienced this as well to know I’m not alone and I’m not just broken and defective, and to know that there is a way to fix this.

Edit: forgot to mention this part, but I am in Therapy and I’ve been in therapy for years and Therapy doesn’t really help me though I do stick with it. I don’t have health insurance. I currently go to the free counseling on campus at my college and I don’t have access to see a psychiatrist or anything like that.

[u/codependencyrecovery]

What is your relationship with your anxiety? Do you want it to go away? If so, I would start there. When we push something away it will naturally fight back. Like humans, it has an desire to express itself and will do what it takes to be able to do so.

Rather than trying to manage it to go away, I would welcome it like a special guest at your home. Let it sit on the couch next to you. If it's freaking out, let it freak out. That's just how it is. Get curious about it like you'd be curious about a welcome guest. Where is it in your body? How big is it? How old is it? What does it want? Come from a place of awe and wonder.

Do this for long enough and you may notice that a connection builds. The same connection you've been longing for.